The Right Handed - Chapter 1
by pokachou
Summary: 17-year-old Joshua Creo awakes on a seemingly ordinary day, but little does he know he's about to meet two strange individuals with even stranger intents. Something is coming. Josh can feel it, but will he be able accept it?


*Let me start by saying this is my first attempt at writing this story that I have had in my head for quite some time. I have done my best to proofread and spell check, but I am not perfect, nor a developed writer, but that being said, I would very much appreciate some constructive criticism. Thanks in advance to anyone that takes the time to read this first chapter. If you enjoy it, please let me know and I will definitely write more.*

Chapter 1 - The Meeting

Joshua had slept into the late morning that day. This was one of the many positives of summer vacation. He also had to make sure he was up and ready to go the mall with his mother by noon to go shopping for new clothes for the upcoming school year. This was one of the negatives of summer vacation.

Joshua rolled out of bed. His hair rolled off the pillow and tumbled against the nape of his neck. His hair was long, but for some odd reason it had always grown faster on the right side, which left him with an asymmetrical hair style that always seemed to be a cause for discussion amongst his classmates. But probably the most astonishing thing about Joshua's hair was its striking silver color. Joshua had always remembered his hair being this way, but he had always blamed it on things like bad genetics or some sort of deficiency.

He stumbled to his dresser, the effects of too much sleep still weighing heavy on his eyelids did little for his ability to navigate his cluttered room. Joshua reached down to retrieve a shirt, but like every morning for as long as he can remember his eyes went directly from the white and black baseball tee he was holding, to his right hand. Joshua was born with a strange birthmark on his right hand that bared a resemblance to a lower case "t," or a cross. He had never thought much of it, except for the when he would categorize it under the list of the many things that alienated him from everyone else.

"JOSHUA ARE YOU AWAKE?" He heard his mother call from downstairs.

Joshua, snapped out of his trance and began getting dressed. He put on the shirt he had grabbed from his dresser, a pair of ripped skinny jeans, and his of chuck taylors he had been wearing since freshman year. He turned to see how his outfit looked in the mirror. "Maybe I do need new clothes." he thought looking down at his grungy looking appearance. He dismissed the self-consciousness and quickly hurried down the stairs.

"You know…you only have a few weeks left of summer. Why don't you go see your friends instead of sleeping all day?" Joshua's mother wasted no time getting to the point. This often added more stress to Joshua's anxieties.

"Mom, if I had friends I wouldn't be spending my last couple weeks of break going shopping with you." Joshua said sharply, but not too sharply, as to make her anger enough cancel the excursion. He really did need new shoes.

"Well, all I'm saying is you need to put yourself out there to get anything in return, and if that means waking up couple hours early, and meeting new people than so be it." No matter what his mom said he always felt that she was right and wrong at the same time.

Joshua ignored her and continued on with his morning routine. First he would immediately go to the coffee maker, and dump out the coffee that his mother had made a couple hours prior. The coffee his mother made was either cold by the time he got up, or if he managed to make it to the kitchen in time to find it still warm, it was always to weak. He scooped the coffee grounds into the machine and hit start. The liquid started to spit and sputter out of the spout at the top. Dark and syrupy, just the way he liked it.

Once he had taken the first sip of his piping hot coffee he would then make himself some breakfast. He liked turkey bacon the most, but this morning he only found bagels and cream cheese. He decided that a bagel would have to suffice till he could get something at the food court. He popped the bagels in the toaster and waited patiently while sipping his coffee. Once the bagels were thoroughly toasted he opted towards the plain cream cheese over the strawberry, and sat down to eat his breakfast.

Joshua managed to get the bagel within inches of his mouth before he heard the door bell ring.

"Josh can you grab that?" His mom called from her bedroom.

"Yeah, I got it." He replied as he quickly took a bite of his bagel before casually strolling to the door.

He opened the door to find a peculiar couple standing in front of him. "Joshua Creo?" The man spoke first. He was tall. Really tall. He was wearing a ratty old jacket, and grimy Sex Pistols shirt that looked about as old as the band themselves.

"This is definitely him." The girl spoke next. She was small, shorter than Joshua, and probably around the same age he suspected. Her obviously adorable face was halfway hidden by a short bob haircut dyed a blueish-green on the ends.

Joshua was in a sort of shock from hearing these two characters who seemed to be straight out of movie saying his name, but before he could muster up the nerve to speak he was interrupted.

"Hi Josh, nice to meet you. Im Benvolio Romantia III, and this is my good friend Zight. Say, you think we could come in?" The tall man asked.

"Umm," Joshua stepped through the doorway outside, and closed the door behind him. "We can talk out here." He said. Suspecting he was about hear some lengthy sermon about the sins of man against the almighty, and how he should cleanse his tainted spirit.

The man, Benny, made his way to the porch swing and gestured for Josh to take a seat. Josh was reluctant. Primally because he didn't like the idea of giving the high ground to these strangers, but he was compelled to sit by the man's swagger alone.

Joshua had never known much about cars, but his eyes still managed to find there way to the cherry red sports car sitting in his driveway. Josh didn't have a father to teach him the cliche ideas of cars and tools, but he could easily tell this particular car was an older model of the same cookie cutter car all the cookie cutter rich kids drove to school everyday. The sight of the sports car parked next to his 1993 Oldsmobile Intrigue irritated him.

"She's a beaut, huh? Restored her myself." Benny said smugly.

Joshua gritted his teeth, and tried to keep the encounter short. "Is there something I can help you two with?" he said calmly though his inner neuroses was rapidly approaching.

"Alright. A straight to the point kind of guy. I can respect that. Zi, do you want to do the honors?" Benny said looking down at his fragile female companion.

Zi sighed. "I suppose. Joshua, May we see your birthmark?"

Joshua was shocked. This conversation had quickly veered in a direction he was not expecting. He tried to formulate possibly situations that would lead two people he had never met to come to his door and ask to see something so strange. He decided that they must have been put up to it by one of his many moronic peers.

"Screw off." Josh said bluntly as he stood and started walking toward the front door. He dealt with this sort of thing quite a bit at school, and was rather immune to the torment. He had already switched gears and thought about his probably now cold cup of coffee.

"Wait." The girl spoke again. "I know that's a silly question, but the matters involving our asking is nothing short of world changing." The girl didn't speak anything like the girls he had grown up with. Maybe this is why he stopped, and took his hand off the door knob.

Josh was still facing the door when he spoke. "Listen. I don't what you're talking about, or who put you up to this, but I've got more important things to worry about then you two getting off on messing with me.

"No! You actually don't. You don't have anything more important to do than to sit hear, show us your birthmark, and then listen to what we have to say." The man said.

Josh was struck by the harshness in the man's tone. Something in his mind gave him butterflies. He turned to face Benny and Zight. "Fine." Josh stretched out his arm, and with palm facing down, revealed the birthmark on his right hand.

Benny and Zight's eyes both lit up. "Finally." They both spoke at the same time.

"Ya good? ok? ok. Now what do you have to say. I'm not some religious icon for your cult of punks am I?" Joshua asked half sarcastically.  
Zi's face seemed a little offend, but Benny seemed to stand taller. He had never thought of the word "punk" to be derogatory. He had actually preferred people referred to him as a punk.

"Of course not. You're simply the only person in the world that has the ability to spot a very bad man from doing very bad things." Zi spoke bluntly.

Benny took over and continued before Josh could ask any questions. "You see Josh. You're the last piece needed to set a very large game into motion."

"A game, like checkers?" Josh said, even more sarcastically.

"More like chess." Zi said bluntly. "You're speaking in riddles again Ben." Zi continued. Now addressing Josh. "By "'chess"' he means a war, and by "'piece''' he means soldier. Here's the thing Josh. There's something coming. Something a long time in the making. A long _long_ time, This something arrives with you Josh, and when it finally arrives it will kick off a series of events that will lead a grand revolution. Whether that revolution is for the better or for the worse is up to the players in this war."

Benny again took the reigns of the dialogue. "Judging by the fact that you still have your birthmark the war has yet to begin. So we still have some time. Which is good."

Joshua had a thousand and one questions whirling through his head, but when he finally found the opportunity to speak he asked about the most puzzling part of Zi's speech. "'Still have my birthmark?'" He restated cowardly.

"That's the fun part, Joshy. You're gonna lose your right hand. Whether it's by some freak accident, or you find yourself unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with the most wrong individual, it will definitely happen." Benny said jokingly as if he didn't really appreciate the morbidity of the words that had just come out of his mouth.

Josh was starting to become fearful of the conversation. The two seemed harmless moments ago when they were talking about some strange war and the world's impending doom, but now they were insinuating bodily harm, but before Josh could turn around, run inside, and lock the door behind Benny made a sharp movement.

In one fluid motion Benny lifted his haggard shirt up to his neck revealing a very large, and very dark mark on his left pectoral. The mark looked ragged and splotchy around the edges, but the inside was much more solid. At the center of the large mass on Benny's chest was a smaller mark that was almost porcelain colored. This smaller blemish had the appearance of sutra scars, like someone had tried to open his chest and take out his heart. Coincidentally this is what really happened.

"Roughly 400 years ago I lost my heart. I was dying from what would now be considered an immune deficiency. The royal apothecaries sought me out and gave me their word that my family would be well compensated if I let them open me up and extract my heart just after I kicked it. I agreed to their terms and the day finally came when my buddy, Death, caught up me. I was dead for 35 minutes before it happened."  
"What happened?" Josh asked before realizing the absurdity of the story.

"They claimed that the heart that was removed from my body exploded, in a sense, then returned to my chest. The incisions they made to retrieve my heart quickly sealed and I woke up two minutes later. " Benny said in a matter of fact way. His voice was calm, almost as if he had been telling the story for a very long time.

Josh stared intently at the mark on Benny's chest. Every word of his story sounded like a bad drug trip, but something within Josh drove his curiosity, and he waited to hear the next part of the story.

Benny continued. "For the next couple weeks after the incident I was held captive. The men that had preformed the initial surgery kept me locked up and preformed tests. They would cut, slash, and tear me open. They made me drink and eat poisoned food, and time after time I would regenerate and heal. After the last notes were taken I became less of a subject to study an more of an event to watch. Royal families would come from all around to watch me squirm as those fuckers poked and prodded me, then watched my wounds vanish.

Benny lowered his shirt, and reached into his pocket. He fished out a pack a cigarettes and proceeded to light one. "Zi's story isn't much prettier. although her gift is a lot more appealing.

Zi brushed her brightly colored hair away from her face. Josh's mouth dropped when he saw what she had kept hidden the entire conversation. Her face was normal, beautiful, but normal. Except for one small detail. Her right eye was a brilliant green. This particular color green had to be rare, but the part that made it even more incredible was that her left eye was a deep royal blue.

"Yeah. yeah. we're all freaks. Now can we get to the nitty gritty?" Zi's voice had a hit of pain and embarrassment in it.

"Right!" Benny broke away from his serious attitude with another long pull from his smoke. "Josh, the mark on your hand signifies that you too will be given one of these gifts. And judging by the known roster of combatants in this little game. yours is one of the most coveted."

Joshua's frustration and confusion reached an all time high at this time. "Ok. So let's pretend you guys are telling the truth, and i am part of some war. Let's say I inherit this _gift_ , then what?"

"That'll be for you to decide." Zi said.

Benny continued. "We've searched you out Josh, because there are certain types of people that want to be the last man standing in this war. If those people manage to cut down the rest of us then they will inherit the rest of the gifts, and move into an unimaginable position of great power. Zi and I need your help to prevent that from happening."

Josh face was expressionless, but Zi and Benny knew what was coming. "Bullshit." Josh returned.

Zi had had enough of this routine and she intended to end it. "Josh, your house has 3 bedrooms. When you enter the front door you turn right, go through the kitchen up the stairs, and enter your room. Your room is the first door at the top of the stair. You have 12 shirts, and 4 pairs of jeans on your floor. One of those pairs of jeans has a note in the pocket. A note that reads '12:01 AM August 19th…' I know this because that's the gift I was given. The right eye of the Creator. The All-seeing eye."

Josh was stunned. He had completely forgot about that note, but his confusion about how Zi was able to know all of this information quickly turned to anger. "What the hell? You've been spying on me! What's up with you freaks?" Josh was practically screaming. "Get off our property, and never come back!"

Benny rolled his eyes. "Hardball, eh? Alright." He reached in his jacket pocket, and fished a piece of paper, and forced them into Josh's hand. "I'll be expecting your call at 12:02." He smiled, then the two turned and returned to flashy sports car.

Josh watched the two strange characters pull out of the driveway and speed away. He stood like a statue for a moment before snapping back to reality, and glancing down at his hand which was still holding the paper that Benny had given him. It was a pseudo business card with Benny's full name, and a telephone number. Josh noticed his watch while he stuffed Benny's card into his pant's pocket. The time and date read "12:01 P.M. August 19th." Josh was confused, but before he could try to put the pieces together his concentration was broken by the sight of the strange plus-sign-shaped birthmark on his right hand.


End file.
